Your humble globe-trotter returned home on December 1, only to immediately come down with something nasty. It was like strep throat, but a different bacteria. And just when I thought I was out of the woods with it, the sinus symptoms kicked in. I'm finally starting to feel like myself again, thank goodness. I've been doing the bare minimum for over a week, honestly. I've even been leaving the house in a sweatshirt. This is something I do not do. (Incidentally, I could tell I was feeling better yesterday when I was impelled to put away the laundry.) So yes, I know many emails have yet to be answered. I will get to them as quickly as possible.

So I had to go to New York three times in three weeks--for an audition the week of the 13th, up to Buffalo for Thanksgiving and then back to the city on the 28th. It was all relatively uneventful--though I did get a parking ticket for $165 (!) for blocking a pedestrian ramp, which I could not see because it was covered with leaves and unpainted. Whatever, I'm made of money. (groan) My family is fine, as is Mark's (it was good to see the new baby--he's a sweetie). The auditions were blah, as I knew they would be. It felt very strange to be singing all those high notes when I had already pretty much determined that I was singing the wrong music. Yep, I am making the switch. And I'm doing a competition in January (the same one that pissed me off so much--check the archive!--but this time I know I'm not going to win, so whatever) as a mezzo, and will sing an audition in February as a mezzo. Plus there's a few more competitions I have my eye on. This new music feels SOOOO easy. I don't have to do any work at all. I've always had to work pretty hard at sustaining high phrases--but I never thought much about it. I just figured everybody worked that hard, or that my technique was still shaky, or that I was just lazy. How gratifying to know that there's nothing wrong with me!! And there are still high notes in my new music--they're just less frequent, and instead I spend lots of time at the bottom and below the staff. So the high C will still be needed once or twice (literally, in all the music for my voice type), but the middle C and the B-flat below it will come out to play like, all the time. And I've always been so comfortable with the lower third of my range. I used to think it was singing along with all those Doors and Zeppelin songs that developed my low notes, but apparently they were just always there. :) I also feel that a lot of the performance anxiety and muscular tension I get pre-performance will decrease--no super-hard phrases to obsess over. (Maybe this is wishful thinking--but maybe that's all I need!) Anyway, this is really good news. It means I have a lot of work in front of me--I have to learn about all of these roles and singers--but now it's the good kind of work. Plus, as I've mentioned, this is an incredibly rare voice type. I've only met three, maybe four dramatic mezzos in my life. But they're the voices you remember. (The big Mack truck ones.) In fact, here is an example of what I maybe ought to sound like.

But there is one catch in all this happy self-discovery. It means that I should most definitely NOT sing Madame Butterfly. I could get through it, sure, but it would do me more harm than good to me vocally (and emotionally!). And it's not particularly fair to the company, either, when they could certainly find a singer better vocally equipped. I did sign a contract--months ago--but these are certainly extenuating circumstances, and the company has six months to find another singer. I am having dinner with a good friend from the company tomorrow, and I will have to mention this (he's already partly aware of the voice type-switch situation). I'm not looking forward to it. Wish me luck.

But on a happier note, watch men knitting.